


Hey Sweetie

by ElapsedSpiral



Category: Rick and Morty
Genre: F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-11
Updated: 2015-10-11
Packaged: 2018-04-25 22:04:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,791
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4978267
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ElapsedSpiral/pseuds/ElapsedSpiral
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"This is some crazy shit, right? I’m in a band with a talking cat and a bird man and I don’t even know who’s president.”</p><p>A way too serious take on how Rick met Mrs Sanchez. Second person. Unbeta'd.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Hey Sweetie

**Author's Note:**

> Man, I really don't know where I'm going with this. 
> 
> I get that Rick and Morty is mostly a crass, silly cartoon (which is a lot of fun) but damn do the characters have a lot of potential to be really interesting. I think the serious bits in the show concede that much.
> 
> Anyway, there doesn't seem to be much in the way of fic about Rick meeting his future wife and I kind of dig the idea that she was actually really, really normal. I also have no idea why I went for second person when Rick is such a weird, convoluted character to grasp in the first place but there ya go. 
> 
> This fic actually started life with the aim of comprising a bunch of scenes between Rick and Beth but I haven't quite gotten there yet. I'll see if I get to adding anything more. 
> 
> Again, apologies for making something so mostly silly so serious but I blame Rick for being a weirdly compelling character.

Hey Sweetie

 

“Hey, Rick, what’s your planet called again? Dirt? Soil? Ground?”

 

Coupled with the dwindling buzz of the collaxion crystals, it’s enough to make you laugh. You laugh even harder when it takes you a second to remember the name yourself.

 

“It’s Earth, Squanchy.”

 

“Why’ve we not done a gig on Earth yet? I mean, I’m squanching on a human drum kit, Pers can sing in English as well as Bird. You think we’re not squanch enough for Earth or something?”

 

“Squanchy,” you flick your indicator and make a last minute lane change, earning yourself some spaceship horn honking, “you’re literally a talking cat, or, well, that’s what humans would think. I’d get picked up by the Area 51 guys.”

 

You then have to explain what that means, which takes some time and involves drawing a lot of comparisons with Bird and Squanch culture that you’re hazy about at best. There’s a lot of gesticulation from you and Squanchy and, occasionally, you remember to give the “road” ahead a glance.

 

Pers is quiet up to a point, but, as ever, when he decides to drop you in it, he really drops you in it.

 

“Rick, you have previously informed us that humans at “gigs” become “inebriated”.”

 

“Well, yeah, it’s a gig, that’s part of the deal.”

 

“Then it may be possible to explain away our appearances as an inebriation fuelled vision.”

 

“What, so now you wanna go too? Jesus, humans don’t even have cell phones yet, or, well, last I checked they didn’t,” you grouse.

 

“You have also enacted the human law of the “dare” on a number of occasions,” Pers adds calmly, “So I fear were you not to oblige Squanchy, he would be forced to “double dog dare” you to grant our request for one gig on your home planet.”

 

The collaxion high has thoroughly worn off now and you give them both a glower. You toy with the idea of explaining the “Prime Direction” or whatever that thing’s called from Star Trek but decide it’s really more effort than it’s worth.

 

“Oh you done did it now. Alright, fine, one gig. In… I dunno, Michigan.”

 

“Michigan is your home?” Birdperson asks.

 

“Nope, never been. All I know is they’ve got a lake and I’m not gonna run into my old man or mother there.”

 

The trip back “home” is slow, smelly and bumpy in the tour van. Interplanetary customs do their best to cop a feel. It doesn’t pass your notice that when you explain that you’re a human, from Earth, that there’s some twinkle of recognition nowadays. And your dad said you’d never amount to anything.

 

For the final few lightyears after customs, Birdperson sobers even by Bird standards. With Squanchy sleeping or squanching in the back of the van, you’re left to try out being emotionally available stone cold sober.

 

“I fear there are changes coming,” he says, softly, eyes focussed on the stars drifting past the windshield, “A storm approaches and journeys such as these, friendships such as ours and planets like your own will no longer be sheltered from outside manipulation.”

 

At the age of sixteen you had given up all pretence of attending high school; at eighteen you’d built a small but serviceable airplane. After briefly kidding yourself that you had any interest in book learning, at age twenty three, you’d just gotten down to business and made yourself a rocket ship using nothing but the same kind of hunches that let you play Cramps songs without the slightest idea of how to read music.

 

In short, you’re not stupid. Or, well, you’re book stupid but sharp in every other way that counts. What Birdperson is saying between the lines is not lost on you. There’s a storm coming and you in your clapped out, rickety piece of crap space tour bus are flying right into its eye.

 

You share a look in silence before the weight of the conversation makes your shoulders bow.

 

“Pers, we need to get you laid. I’m not giving you another handjob, you were way too awkward about that after,” you throw in a knowing, sidelong wink.

 

“You are purposefully changing the subject.”

 

“Because there’s nothing more to say! When the storm hits, I dunno, we’ll all… we’ll take cover or… do what’s gotta be done,” your mouth goes a little dry at the thought that maybe you’ve signed yourself up for a war on the way to fucking Ann Arbor, “But for now? We’re gonna get Squanch some squanch, you’re gonna get your beak wet and I’m gonna see what the hell Earth’s been doing for the,” you consult your third watch, “Fuck, the last three years, jesus, wow, alright.”

 

As you make your descent, you decide it’s a good time to explain that maybe half your back catalog isn’t so much new songs as songs that other people (namely Black Flag, the Descendants and the Circle Jerks) just kinda happened to think of first.  

 

*

 

Earrings got bigger, shoulders pads became a thing and neon really took off while you were away. Popular music also took a really big, stinky shit but the alternative stuff still seems decent. That’s your assessment, anyway, based on the fact that a student bar near Michigan’s campus agrees to let you play a set that weekend.

 

It occurs to you that the audience probably think you’re some weird ass, art installation bullshit - there’s a cat on drums - but drugs have definitely not gone out of fashion so no-one thinks to call the cops. And the internet still isn’t a thing, so it’s not like anyone could spread the word quicker than by goddamn telegraph or letter written with a quill and ink.

 

You’re not much of a smoker and Earth alcohol’s never really been your deal but when you’re still half deaf and physically vibrating from the noise and adrenaline of a show, you find yourself jonesing for some nicotine. You make your way out the back of the bar and turn to the alleyway’s only other occupant, a young woman in an oversized t-shirt and jeans.  

 

“Hey, sweetie, can you spare one of those?”

 

She pauses in putting away her pack of cigarettes and turns to give you a look. She’s on the short side, kind of mousey but, sure enough, she’s a redhead because you’re nothing if not predictable.

 

Flicking the pack back open, she looks inside for a moment before pulling another cigarette out and holding it out. You take it and lean in for her to light it, smirking a little. You smoke in silence before she speaks, the words almost swallowed up by the music drifting through the ajar fire escape.

 

“That was surreal.”

 

“Huh?” you breathe smoke out of your nose, processing the comment, “Oh, you mean the show.”

 

“Well, yes.”

 

“Mm,” you flick ash off your cigarette and consider the alleyway idly, “Well, yeah.”

 

“I don’t usually come to this kind of thing,” she explains, addressing the opposite wall rather than you, “My friends suggested it. I don’t even go to this college.”

 

“You go to college?”

 

“No,” her nose wrinkles, “I got my high school diploma but I’m not smart enough for college.”

 

“Me neither,” you say before you feel laughter bubble up inside you and suddenly you’re hunched over, nearly crying and she’s looking at you like maybe she needs to ring the men in white coats.

 

“What’s… what’s funny?”

 

“Everything,” you manage, swallowing down on the acidic bile in your mouth that accompanied some of the more hysterical laughter. You rub the tears from your eyes and carry on, a little more solemnly, “I never went to college but,” you nod your head, gesturing she follow you around the corner of the building. Reluctantly, one hand clearly gripping her bag ready to either whip out mace or club you with it, she follows.

 

“This,” and sure enough, the laughter starts up again as you pull the tarp off and show her your clapped out, bumper sticker covered van, “I… Th-this, it’s a spaceship I made like, five years ago. I’ve travelled further than goddamn NASA and I only know Einstein’s that guy with the hair, jesus, sorry,” you lean on the driver’s side door, which groans in protest, “I swear, I’m not as big a jackass as I’m coming across right now - well, maybe - it’s just… this is some crazy shit, right? I’m in a band with a talking cat and a bird man and I don’t even know who’s president.”

 

When you finally stop babbling, she’s watching you, in a quiet, keen way, not quite believing but warming to the idea that this isn’t just ludicrous, drunken nonsense.

 

You stub out your cigarette and surprise yourself when you pop the passenger door, slipping into the driver’s side to start the engine.

 

“Wanna spin?” when she purses her lips you add, “I’m not trying to get you in the sack, I’m just kind of having a crisis and wanna go get some air.”

 

“Right,” she gets in, buckles up (why did you even install seat belts, exactly? Just to look cool when you don’t use yours?) and holds the passenger side door handle in white knuckled grip as you set off.

 

It’s only when you’re on the Moon, in that little air-and-gravity pocket you’ve been working on in that one crater no-one seems to be watching too closely, that you turn to really look at her again. She’s looking around with a quiet horror on her face, taking in the monochromatic landscape and the void of the “sky”.

 

The trip sobered you up and you just sit in your deck chair, drinking a beer you stole from the bar back in Michigan.

 

“My name is Deborah but, people call me Debbie,” she says.

 

“My name’s Ricardo but literally no-one has ever called me that,” you respond, “People call me Rick.”

 

“Oh.”

 

“So,” you kick out your legs in front of you and shoot her a sidelong look, “This not a good first date location? For future reference?”

 

Debbie fixes you with a look that’s hard to gauge but is definitely searching.

 

“I never want to do this, ever again,” she says, softly.

 

“Right,” you jangle the van keys, “So, Earth?”

 

“Not just yet. Just… never again.”

 

“Huh,” you finish your drink, placing the bottle on the dusty floor, “Not your thing?”

 

“No,” she agrees, “It’s too much. I guess,” you try not to look derisive, “I just have a very planetary mindset.”

 

There’s a moment of silence and then you’re laughing until you’re crying again.

 

“You’re smart, Debbie.”

 

“I can’t tell if you’re being cruel,” she says bluntly and it unnerves you for a second.

 

“I’m not.”

 

“Okay.”

 

“I… I’m out of practice, talking to humans,” you concede, “But I’m working on it.”

 

“How? You don’t know who’s president and you’re on tour with your alien band in your rocket ship, Rick.”

 

There’s something about the droll way she says your name that makes you grin ear to ear. It probably says a lot about you but you’ve always been a sucker for people who treat you like a piece of unspectacular shit.

 

“Yeah, well,” you go back to the van, making sure to put a bit of swagger in the walk because you didn’t buy jeans this tight for the health benefits, and return with the beat up piece of crap gun. Debbie gives you a look that reminds you that, yeah, to the uninitiated, it’s a weapon.

 

“This thing, it’s going to take me to different dimensions, you know, like, the dimension where I don’t say that but I say “this portal gun, it’s going to take me to different dimensions”, yadda yadda, all the different strands of everything, branching out into an infinite number of different realities,” you say, cradling it in your hands like maybe if you treat it nice, it’ll actually do that, “Or, well, it might. I’m working on it. Right now it just gets really hot then gives me an electric shock.”

 

“Right,” Debbie offers. She takes the gun from you, carefully but without asking permission, turns it over in her hands, taking in the duct tape and the fraying wires. Her eyebrows are somewhere in her choppy bangs. She passes the gun back with a mutter of, “...I think it’s time I went home.”

 

You take her back to Michigan and execute what, for you, is a pretty smooth landing. You even go ahead and open the passenger side door for her, helping her to her feet because space travel can make you a little knock kneed when you’re new to it, you recall faintly.

 

“So,” you smile wryly, “Thanks for the cigarette, Debs.”

 

“Debbie.”

 

“Not Debs?”

 

“Not Debs, Ricky.”

 

“Touche.”

 

You eyeball each other a second and then, Debbie takes a plain black notebook from her handbag. She uncaps a pen, scrawls something on a page and pulls it carefully out. You watch, far more interested than you can explain, as she folds it, once, twice, and holds it out for you to take.

 

“It’s my number.”

 

You quirk a brow (not that you have two, anyways) and take the paper, unfold it. You’re not exactly sure why you needed to check, but it is, clearly, a Michigan area code telephone number. You refold it, hold it between two fingers.

 

“I think maybe you should keep it.”

 

“Okay?”

 

“For if you crack the interdimensional space travel thing.”

 

“I…” it’s not a sentence you have to say that often so it takes you some formulating, “I don’t understand? You said you never want to do that again.”

 

“I don’t,” she agrees, closing the clasp on her handbag carefully and turning to go back into the bar, “But you already laugh yourself to tears at the idea that you can fly to other galaxies. When you figure out how to travel through different realities…” with a shrug, she offers, “I think you could lose your mind.”

 

Anything witty dies on your tongue at how blandly she puts it. There’s no dramatic flair to work with. She could be telling you that it’s going to rain tomorrow, for all the emotion in her words.

 

“Right.”

 

“Thanks for the gig,” she says, by way of goodbye.

 

“Thanks for the cigarette,” you respond, “And for… y’know,” you gesture with the paper.

 

She offers the smallest of smiles and slips back inside the club. You look after her for a moment, suddenly cold in the Michigan fall air in your ridiculous “shirt”. You throw the tarp back over the van, but not before putting the piece of paper in the glovebox.

 

*

 

According to your third watch, it’s four years later that you land in a Michigan suburb. You walk a couple blocks, find the right door, knock and find out that you need another address in Muskegon County because the last owner moved a year back.

 

You leave your van, still covered with the tarp, and take the bus using a few crumpled dollar bills you found in the footwell. You watch identical houses slide by the window and feel how the bus’s wheels glide over the road. It’s surreal.

 

She doesn’t look that different to how you hazily recall: short, redhead, small mouth and big eyes. Little hands.

 

But then, that’s not really fair to say. Maybe you remember her from:

 

  * the timeline where you got hitched that first time you meet;

  * the timeline where the bar burned down and you caught a glimpse of her through the flames;

  * the timeline where she didn’t have a spare cigarette;

  * the timeline where she told you she didn’t have a spare cigarette, sorry, and she was lying just to get you to leave her alone;

  * the timeline where-




 

“Hey.”

 

She looks less surprised to see you than you’d expected. If anything, she looks crestfallen.

 

“Hey,” she moves back against the wall of the cramped entrance hall to let you in, “I’m guessing you know this is the timeline where I’m not in a relationship.”

 

A delirious laugh bursts out of you for the first time in weeks. You’re almost sick, right there in her hallway, on a pair of her stupidly small shoes. When you’ve finally gotten your composure, you say, “God, I need a drink”, and you’re mostly joking.

 

The pair of you still have a scotch at eleven in the morning, to be sure, and if you cry, well, she doesn’t draw attention to it and that’s all you can ask for.

 

You’re married in a month. She’s pregnant in two and you’ve seen how this goes. Debbie hasn’t, of course, but the pair of you still act like maybe this timeline will work out differently.

 

 


End file.
